318 



NATURAL HISTORY OF 



laps 

 iter- 



lakes, and many woods wherein it lies concealed, 

 three sealike gulfs which surround it, and the rigorous 

 winters of that latitude, has still not escaped perhaps 

 more than half hybridism; for the northern porti 

 alone can be considered as typical of the semi-irr 

 mixture of the Hyperborean and Caucasian stocks. 

 It is there alone that the Lapland tongue finds so 

 much affinity as to amount to a decided similarity ; 

 there the great distinguishing mental characteristic of 

 the whole subtype is observed, in the permanence and 

 generality of iron mining propensities, the godlike 

 office of the forging smith, the constant poetical allu- 

 sion to gold, silver, and iron, are prominent ; and all 

 the sorcery and incantations of the Laplanders, short 

 of their magical drums, even now in vogue practices 

 alike common to the kindred Shamans of Asia and the 

 Angekoks of Arctic America. Although the Finnic 

 race repudiates in national pride all consanguinity with 

 the Laplander, the northern portion almost equally 

 reviles the southern, because it is less conversant with 

 the old nationalities, and is more generally, if not 

 altogether, tall, straight, and fair haired. On exami- 

 nation, we are assured, that there is equa> distinctness 

 in the cranial structure between them; but as yet, 

 no account of a thoroughly scientific inquiry in this 

 question appears to have reached middle Europe. 



They are, moreover, accused by the Swedes, of 

 being more malevolent, a greater proportion of Finns 

 occurring on the list of malefactors than of natives of 

 Sweden, when both countries were under the same 



